Important dates in Lebanon’s history:
1516-1918 – Lebanon is part of the Ottoman Empire.
1920 – The League of Nations grants France a mandate over Lebanon and Syria and creates the Greater Lebanon state from the provinces of Mount Lebanon, North Lebanon, South Lebanon, and the Bekaa.
1926 – The Lebanese Representative Council approves the constitution and the United Lebanese Republic is proclaimed under French mandate.
1944 – France agrees to transfer power to the Lebanese government.
1958 – Faced with a growing opposition that escalates into civil war, President Camille Chamoine asks the United States to send troops to maintain Lebanon’s independence. The US will send Marines.
1967 – Lebanon does not play an active role in the Arab-Israeli war, but would be affected by the fallout if the Palestinians used Lebanon as a base for attacking Israel.
1975 – Phalangist gunmen ambushed a bus in Beirut’s Ain al-Rumana district, killing 27 mostly Palestinian passengers, claiming that guerrillas had previously attacked a nearby church. These clashes sparked a civil war in Lebanon from 1975 to 1990.
1976 – Syrian troops enter Lebanon to restore peace but also to suppress Palestinians, killing thousands in siege of Tell al-Za’tar camp by Syrian-allied Christian militias in Beirut It was done.
1978 – In retaliation for attacks on Palestine, Israel launches a large-scale invasion of southern Lebanon. It withdrew from all but a narrow border area and handed it over to its proxy, the South Lebanese Army, a predominantly Christian militia.
1982 – Following an assassination attempt on the Israeli British ambassador by a Palestinian splinter group, Israel begins a full-scale invasion of Lebanon.
1982 – Pro-Israel president-elect Bashir Gemayel is assassinated. Israel occupies West Beirut. Phalangist militias kill thousands of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila camps. Peacekeepers from the United States, France and Italy arrive in Beirut.
1983 – In April, a suicide bomb attack on the American embassy killed 63 people, and in October, a suicide bomb attack on the peacekeeping force headquarters killed 241 American troops and 58 French troops. US forces withdrew in 1984.
1985 – Most Israeli troops withdraw from the southern “safe zone.”
1988 – Outgoing President Amin Gemayel appoints an interim military government under Maronite commander Michel Aoun in east Beirut after an inconclusive presidential election. Prime Minister Selim el Hoss installs a mainly Muslim rival government in west Beirut.
1989 – Saudi Arabia’s parliament meets in Taif and approves the Charter of National Reconciliation, which transfers many of the president’s powers to the cabinet and increases the number of Muslim members of parliament.
1990 – The Syrian Air Force attacks the presidential palace in Baabda and Aoun flees. This officially ends the civil war.
1991 – Parliament orders the disbandment of all militias except the powerful Shiite group Hezbollah. Lebanese forces defeat the PLO and capture the southern port of Sidon.
1992 – After the first elections since 1972, wealthy businessman Rafic Hariri becomes Prime Minister.
2000 – Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon
2005 – Former prime minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a car bomb in Beirut, sparking anti-Syrian rallies and a political crisis.
2006 – Israel attacks after Hezbollah kidnaps two Israeli soldiers. The 34-day war left many civilian casualties and widespread damage. United Nations peacekeeping forces are deployed along the southern border, followed by the Lebanese army for the first time in decades.
2008 – Lebanon establishes diplomatic relations with Syria for the first time since the two countries became independent.
2012 – The Syrian civil war began in March 2011, with clashes between Sunni and Alawite Muslims in Tripoli and Beirut, and spread to Lebanon.
2013 – The European Union lists Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization.
2014 – The United Nations announces that there are currently more than 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
2020 – The government resigns after months of protests over currency devaluation, the effects of the coronavirus lockdown, and riots after a massive chemical explosion at Beirut’s port.
2024 – Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is killed in an Israeli airstrike as cross-border fighting escalates following Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023.
